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Employee Selection Methods: Examples and Best Practices

Written by

Lily Yuan

Reviewed by

VidCruiter Editorial Team

Last Modified

Jan 30, 2025
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What are Employee Selection Methods?

Employee selection methods vary based on organizational goals and objectives. From high-volume hiring (as with Google’s famous recruiting process that can take months) to finding the perfect candidate or, in the HR world, the purple squirrel, companies tailor their approach to fit their hiring needs.

There are seven general steps to any employee selection method: applying, screening, interviewing, assessing, reference checking, decision-making, and finally, offering the job. Recruiters typically start with an introductory call, and proceed through the preboarding essentials.

Sometimes, a follow-up interview is necessary in order to gain further insight into how a candidate has demonstrated their expertise in the past. These interviews dig deeper into previous work experience and may include more complex situational questions that gauge critical thinking skills.

Employee selection methods

Types of Employee Selection Methods and Examples

Depending on organizational needs, employee selection methods can be as simple as a single phone screen to a more drawn-out, long-winded series of complex steps. One overarching goal is to hire the best employee for the role, or whomever shows the most promising potential for growth in the future.

By employing different selection techniques, organizations can better predict job performance, assess cultural fit, and minimize the risk of turnover. Where and when corporations post their job advertisements also matters. These can be company career pages, recruitment agencies, online job boards, as well as through word of mouth.

These methods vary widely in approach and can include a combination of assessments, interviews, and evaluations designed to measure a candidate’s skills, experience, character, and cognitive abilities. Let’s take a closer look at the types of employee selection methods, as well as examples during the earlier stages of the recruiting funnel.

Cognitive Ability Tests

Cognitive assessments can help employers hop on the skills-based hiring train. As organizations face a tight competition for the best talent, cognitive ability tests help the sift through applications with higher confidence and predictive validity.

These are also known as General Mental Ability (GMA) assessments. These tests focus on quantitative measures and objective measures of a candidate’s reasoning abilities to promote equitable hiring practices.

Some popular cognitive ability tests in the workplace include:

Numerical reasoning tests

Linguistic and verbal comprehension tests

Nonverbal intelligence tests

Situational Judgment Tests

Also known as SJT for short, situational judgment tests are used to evaluate how individuals approach and respond to various hypothetical work-related scenarios. The test typically presents a series of scenarios that simulates real-life situations a person may encounter on the job.

For each scenario, candidates are asked to choose the most appropriate or effective response from a list of options, often ranging from “Most Effective” to “Least Effective” answers. SJTs are especially useful in hiring for roles that require interpersonal skills, emotional intelligence, problem-solving abilities, and decision-making.

A sample question for a situational judgment tests may look like this:

Scenario: You are tasked with solving a complex problem at work, but you’re unsure how to proceed. You don’t have all the information you need, but you’re under pressure to meet a tight deadline. What do you do?

  1. Guess a solution based on your previous experiences and submit it before the deadline.
  2. Ask a colleague who might have experience with similar problems for advice.
  3. Take extra time to gather more data before making any decision, even if it risks missing the deadline. 
  4. Inform your manager that you’re unable to solve the problem in time and ask if they have any suggestions.
Situational judgment tests

Structured Interviews

As the type of interview that generates high hiring metrics and overall quality of hire, structured interviews involve a standardized set of questions consistent for all candidates in a role. These interviews reduce hiring biases and help recruiters make smarter decisions, faster. Candidates’ responses are then evaluated on an interview scorecard across the panel.

With structured interviews, recruiters and hiring managers typically ask both behavioral and situational questions. Behavioral questions focus on the candidate’s past experiences, while situational questions explore how the candidate may respond and adapt to a scenario in the future.

Job Simulations

A job simulation is a pre-employment evaluation where candidates are given a series of job-related tasks or assignments in a test environment. These tasks can be technical or customer-oriented and allow hiring managers to assess a candidate's ability to perform the job before they are hired.

There are multiple types of job simulations HR teams conduct for candidates:

  • In-basket simulations
  • Situational judgment simulations
  • Role-playing simulations
  • Work sample simulations

In-Basket Simulations

An in-basket exercise presents candidates with a set of tasks, emails, or issues that they must prioritize and respond to within a limited timeframe, testing their time management, decision-making, and organization skills.

Example: For a project manager role, candidates might receive a series of emails and project updates that they need to address effectively in order of importance.

Situational Judgment Simulations

Situational judgment tests present candidates with hypothetical job-related scenarios and ask them to choose the most appropriate course of action, evaluating their problem-solving and decision-making abilities.

Example: For a customer service role, candidates may be asked how they would handle a scenario involving an angry customer requesting a refund.

Role-Playing Simulations

In a role-playing exercise, candidates act out a specific job-related scenario, and demonstrate how they would handle real-world tasks or challenges. Hiring managers often assess communication, negotiation, and interpersonal skills.

Example: For a sales position, candidates might role-play a conversation where they try to persuade a potential client to purchase a product.

Work Sample Simulations

A work sample test involves candidates to complete tasks that closely mimic the actual work they would perform on the job, which provides a direct measure of their skills and abilities relevant to the position.

Example: For a graphic designer role, candidates may be asked to create an advertisement design based on a client brief, and showcase their creative and technical proficiency.

Reference Checks

In an increasingly digital world where anyone can type anything on the Internet or their resume, reference checks can help recruiters gain a better understanding of candidates from different perspectives and more qualitative measures, along with anecdotal evidence.

Hiring managers and recruiters can conduct strategically-timed automated reference checks depending on the needs of the organization to secure the best candidate for the role.

Sample questions that reference checks can follow include:

Green checkmark Reference Checks Questions
  • How well did [the candidate] communicate with peers? What was their conflict resolution style?
  • In three words, how would you describe [the candidate]?
  • To what extent did [the candidate] take and incorporate feedback?

Peer Interviews

Peer interviews are a unique approach to the employee selection process, and are growing in popularity. From students to seasoned professionals, being interviewed by potential future colleagues rather than just managers or HR personnel can be insightful.

This method involves team members who would work directly with the new hire in assessing whether the candidate will fit within the team. For example, a hospital is looking to hire a new nurse. After a clinical skills assessment, candidates are invited for peer interviews.

Instead of relying on a single HR healthcare manager, other nurses on the team the nursing candidate will be working directly with pose some situational questions. “What would you do if you have several patients who are asking for assistance at the same time?”

Peer interviews

Frequently Asked Questions

What are common types of employee selection methods?

Common employee selection methods include interviews, cognitive ability tests, personality tests, job simulations, assessment centers, reference checks, and work samples.

How are reference checks important in the employee selection process?

Reference checks provide insight into a candidate’s past job performance, work ethic, and behavior from previous employers or colleagues. This can help confirm the candidate’s qualifications and predict whether they’ll be a good fit for the organization.

How can bias be avoided in employee selection methods?

Hiring biases can be minimized by using standardized methods, such as structured interviews and objective tests. Training interviewers to be aware of unconscious biases, implementing clear evaluation criteria, and using diverse selection panels can also help reduce bias in the process.

What is the difference between structured and unstructured interviews?

Structured interviews have predefined questions asked in a specific order, which ensures consistency across all candidates. Unstructured interviews, in contrast, are informal conversations where questions may vary from candidate to candidate—and may consciously or unconsciously introduce bias.